Life As They Knew It
by Shahzadi
Summary: Life as they knew it didn't have space for the romance Lily wanted and the touch that Lucius wanted to give into. Lily/Lucius, Marauders era. Written for the Alliterated Pairing Competition at the HPFC forum.


A/N: This one-shot was written for the Alliterated Pairings Competition by WhiteFerrets and Amy is rockin. Enjoy.

Life As They Knew It

_Seduction is enticing someone into what they want to do already._

—Waiter Rant

_It is not so important who starts the game, but who finishes it._

—John Wooden

_confidence_

It starts as a crush on Lily's part. She is fifteen and he is seventeen. Like every other person before her, Lily has noticed him before. Everybody notices Lucius Malfoy. What with his long silver hair, constantly imperious expression and arrogant posture, Lucius Malfoy makes himself known. And Lily knows him. She knows the cool eloquence in which he speaks, the grace and elegance in which he carries himself.

And she is enamored by his confidence.

_fascination_

Lucius watches Lily Evans, a Mudblood Gryffindor two years younger than him. It is an occupation that he never berates himself for, because Lucius Malfoy has already accepted that he is a sinner. (Rather, he has embraced it. Life's too rough and complicated to have faith or morals.) And thus, Lucius keeps his eye on Lily Evans.

He evaluates her appearance. She is naturally pretty, with the striking features of green eyes and red hair, hair that he is fortunate enough to see lick her pale cheeks like flames on an extraordinarily windy day outside on the Hogwarts Grounds. She is not like Cissa, who is all cool beauty and translucent fair skin, but rather something else. Something of a different quality, something out of his league. Still, he watches. Watches with fascination the phenomena known as Lily Evans.

_fantasy_

Lily's sole shame is that she fantasizes about him. She knows she can help it but can't bring herself to try to stop it when the images fill her head and she pretends that she can feel him, hear him, touch him. She thinks it's disgusting but she can't seem to resist it. Everytime she has a fantasy she hates and berates herself for it before falling into it again.

Lucius won't deny that he fantasizes about the red-haired Mudblood Gryffindor two years his junior. He's beyond feeling guilt or shame over it, and for the better, too: he's much too busy to waste his precious time in angst. But what truly scares him is that he doesn't know the capacity of his self-control regarding Lily. And Lucius Malfoy is not accustomed to not being in control

His fantasy of her is impossible to resist, something that lures him in before consuming him.

_indiscreet_

Lily will sometimes let her eyes stray towards Lucius Malfoy. It happens almost involuntarily, when she is bored or tired or just acting on her desires. Instead of staring into space she chooses to gaze at the older pureblood, appraising the details of his face and enacting fantasies of herself and him that she finds both disgusting and addicting.

She's done it a few times before and fortunately, he has never noticed. But one day, during a morning in the Great Hall when she is feeling tired and sleepy from a long night spent studying, she automatically averts her gaze towards him and he surprises her by flashing his cold gray eyes in her direction and—she cannot believe it—a slight curl of his lip. It's the most she's ever seen him smile and she can't believe that it was for her. She is saved from the prolongation of this awkward moment by Potter, who is saying something exasperating and inane but never has she been more thankful to the insolent little toerag.

(Later, she will beat herself up for being so stupid and indiscreet and ever possibly _imagining_ that Lucius Malfoy, of all people, would smile at _her_, of all people.)

_pride_

They both have pride. Hers is full blown and forward, the first thing you see alongside that red hair of hers. His, in contrast, is simmering beneath his cool surface of pale blond hair, gray eyes and nonchalant and bored facial expressions.

The essence of Lucius's attraction to Lily is the girl's pride, for it is so obvious, so lacking of any subtlety. Lucius has been a pureblood long enough to know that passion can be as good a weakness as a strength, which is why he constantly keeps his own emotions in check. It fascinates him that she is so willing to display her weakness, emotion that anybody can manipulate, exploit or use to maltreat the girl. (And he has half a mind to do just that.)

_test_

So when Lucius catches her eye one morning in the Great Hall during breakfast time (and is rewarded by the warm blood that floods her cheeks and the embarrassed aversion of her gaze) he finds that he finally has something to work with.

He wants to test how strong the girl is. He would draw her in and then—break her.

He starts subtly. Clandestine glances and very deliberate speech when he is in her presence. He lets her know that he _knows_ she's there, and that he cares for her presence, but can't acknowledge such to the world, implying that any connection between the two of them is their own little secret. To share and to keep.

He works on tempting her. He tries enticing her, seemingly knowing all her weak spots and taking advantage of each and every one of them so that she falls onto her knees before him. Lucius wants to conquer Lily Evans. He wants to _have _her and he will do what he must to take her.

Lily can feel it, and it drives her mad. She doesn't know whether he's doing it purposely or whether it's her own deluded imagination creating the deliberate glances, the words, the accidental touches that Lucius seems to give her. It's not a lot, but it is enough. She stresses over this, once even telling herself to _stop liking him_, but that requires too much strength and Lily isn't strong enough.

(Rather, she's just not willing enough.)

_love_

Whatever it is that she feels for him, it is not love and she tries valiantly not to delude herself into believing it is. (And that is exactly what Lucius is trying to do.) Whatever he feels for her, it is not love. Only an attraction that controls him and a challenge he can't resist delving into.

_competition_

She doesn't give into his _test_, no matter how cleverly he tries to tempt her. Lily may not be strong enough to stop liking him, but she is smart enough not to fall into the snake's trap. It makes Lucius's mouth curl into a scowl, and when he looks for outlets (what other weaknesses does she have that he can take advantage of? How else can he subdue her?) and is met only with a staunch Gryffindor lioness that can be conquered forcibly at best, his frustration elevates.

Lily doesn't know what to do to curb him. She's seen his cold glares and his scowls and smirks, and she knows that a lot of power lies behind the pureblood's cool veneer, in his mind and—she swallows nervously when she entertains this notion—his body. She's come to the conclusion that he wants her as much as she does, if not more, and that he is willing to go to high proportions to get what he wants. And although her conscience teases her that his desire for her is wishful thinking, there is an underlying, more animal instinct within her that tells otherwise. She's at the point where she wants to tell somebody, just to be safe, but her pride and dignity cannot (and will not) endure the shameful confession of her own private feelings for Lucius (and that is a fundamental part of this story, the very fact that she's the one who get herself in this mess). Still, she must do something about this situation. And though Lily Evans is no Slytherin, she's brave and she's smart and she knows that that is enough.

She has to satisfy him somehow, though how she knows not. She knows that she can get him to stop by using threats and blackmail, but Lily wants to end the situation, not prolong it.

In the end, she stops liking him. To affect the external one must correct the internal. Any power he formerly held over her is extinguished with the feelings she once had for him. This way, she is not fighting back. She is not challenging him and is therefore not extending the fight. She has forfeited from this competition of mind, will and emotions that he was so keen on fighting and that she found herself naturally drawn in.

Lily doesn't know whether it's going to work but it is certainly worth trying.

And just like that, he does stop. Her lack of response easily discourages him—from fighting and from wanting—and Lucius Malfoy carelessly dismisses Lily Evans as a passing fancy.

It is a simple, cool, subtle trick. She's turned the tables on him by making him believe that he forfeited from the competition as easily as she did. That he deliberately made the choice to stop pursuing her. When, the truth is, that she _caused_ him to desist by appearing that she had quit as well.

He doesn't even realize that he's lost.

And Lily. . . Well, she's tricked him from getting what he wanted, but she's done it for her own self-preservation. Lily Evans has never been more relieved in her life.

_Life as they knew it_

They meet again, years later. It is during a raid and she is nineteen and he is twenty-two. This time, his pale skin and aristocratic features are concealed by the mask all of the Dark Lord's followers are required to wear. She is fighting alongside James, Remus, Dorcas and Marlene. She is shooting hexes at the tall Death Eater who somehow appears elegant even as he casts the Darkest and most horrible of magic on Lily's comrades. He moves with grace and confidence in his battle against the light side.

A thought occurs in Lily's mind and she acknowledges it, because she knows that lying to oneself only messes things up further. Yes, she thinks. It could be him—probably was. After all, Lucius Malfoy, for all the show he put on at the Ministry, really was greedy and prejudiced enough to join Voldemort and his followers.

They are fighting and they are winning. The Death Eaters were outnumbered from the start, anyway. But a simple disarming spell catches her completely off guard and she stands there, lone and vulnerable and in lack of her wand.

Lucius Malfoy is right on her—and she _knows_ it's him for she can see his cold gray eyes through his ugly mask—and he hisses at her, "You never did win, you know."

Lily only gazes up at him in astonishment, the generic expression expected of her from the people that surround them. It is also a playing piece in _his_ game, the game that she herself is smart enough to play. Her wide, surprised green eyes are a denial of what his words are implying. Although, she knows very well of what he is speaking of.

Afterwards, James flies to Lily's defense and shoots Lucius into the opposite wall of the room that they are fighting in, reclaiming her wand and wordlessly handing it to Lily. Lily thanks her husband, who is glowering at the Death Eater lying in a heap on the floor. They subsequently apparate to where Dumbledore told them to go once the raid was finished, and Lily does not look back.

Later, at night, when James is breathing peacefully next to her in the bed they both share, Lily thinks about Lucius and the girl she once was. She reflects on the words he phrased to her today. _You never did win, you know._ Lucius Malfoy is not used to being tricked. And though she is half-tempted to smile in triumph, she also worries that she's invited his wrath. And in this war, where there already is so much to worry about, a vengeful Lucius Malfoy is the last thing she needs right now.

Today was also the first and only time Lucius spoke to her. And she thinks it's funny. That the man she spent so much time and energy on during her fourth year only spoke to her once in her lifetime. She ponders and she questions, _why_ and _how_, but later concludes that it is life.

Life as they knew it didn't have space for the romance an adolescent Lily yearned for and the touch that Lucius simply wanted to give into. Life as they knew it did not have brilliant, proud Muggle-borns associating with clever, haughty purebloods. No, life had instead given her a game to be played (and won), a challenge to contend with (and triumph over).

Life directed her towards the path she was now on today, despite of what her mind had, against its better judgment, dreamed about; or what her heart, naïve and inexperienced as ever, had once desired.

_fin_

A/N: I'm not going to deny that this is the strangest thing I have ever wrote. Nevertheless, please review. Compliments, criticism, and flames all welcome!


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